Blood and Cakes and Sweeter Things
by MissHikaHaru
Summary: A new student has arrived at Cross Academy, on the case to catch a vampire who is supposedly killing innocent girls with...love? Despite his strange requests for cakes and sweeter things, there is something not quite saccharine about him. To the rest of the Day Class he is simply seen as a weirdo, an idiot and a freak. To the Night Class...he's nothing less than a threat.


The Moon Dorm's vestibule was dimly lit with the sputtering candles that glowed from the intricate chandelier, dangling from the ornately carved domed ceiling. The pale flames reflected shimmeringly against the well-polished marble of the great staircase to hug the cherry-panelled wall. Firelight danced within the eyes that flicked across and around the room, lingering on faces, on hands and arms and clothing, the button left undone or the seam that was lightly frayed. Even the great Kaname Kuran, last of the line, darted those wine-coloured eyes to the door and away. Whispers and worried glances were exchanged almost constantly, the Night Class in uneasy lilting fear as they anticipated their guest.

Only Kaien Cross, Headmaster and Hunter Extraordinaire, spoke not a word. His only anxiety was the excitement most unruly for a man of his station or age; he was soon to meet the greatest Hunter this world had ever known. Had he not practiced daily the discipline a man such as himself must maintain at all times he would be unable to contain himself. But he was dutifully silent, standing with legs apart and arms clasped dignifiedly behind his back; the Hunter's sword hung slack from his belt, the tails of his long coat trailing a few inches behind him up the marble staircase. Beside him his silver-haired apprentice and Academy Guardian, Zero Kiriyu, stood the same; though his prized weapon was still concealed within the inner pocket of his blazer. His appearance was still somewhat lacking formality; hair disobedient, earrings glittering and tie slack. Even the front of his shirt was partly untucked.

Ruka Souen sipped daintily from her wine glass, the copper red liquid only a shade darker than her lips. That long pale hair of hers was diligently hooked, veritably bowing about her back like the curled honeysuckle vine on a branch. She straightened the folds of her long chamoisee satin dress, catching movement in the corner of her fallow eyes and turning her head up to Akatski Kain. He returned her gaze for a moment, fixing the position of his black tie – for the first time tight and neat about his neck – and clenching a hand upon the back of Ruka's nouveau chintz armchair.

None of these serene vampires seemed able to speak now, as time ticked on slowly. Only the grand golden clock emblazoned high at the summited dome of the ceiling voiced any sound; tick…tock…tick…tock…

"Uurgh! What's taking him so long?"

"Rima!" many voices cried. Zero's hardened amethyst eyes narrowed at her.

"Well, _excuse_ me!" The girl with sunglow hair shrugged innocently, playing the tasselled ends of her vanilla shawl. "Can't a girl get bored once in a while?" Ruka sighed primly and set her glass down upon a side table, and the blue eyed boy beside Kain raised his eyebrows as he let out a breath of astonishment. He turned to his russet-haired cousin and rolled the sapphires to occupy his iris. "I saw that, Hana!"

"Hey!" the blonde boy interjected, turning back to look at her beside the rosewood boy. "I told you before, Rima; don't call me Hana!"

"My bad," she said absently, clicking her delicate fingers once. A tiny bolt of lightning crackled and dived for the boy with blue eyes, and it hit him squarely in the chest. He jerked for a moment and groaned, before shaking his head – his glossy blonde curls bounced about his ears – and glared at her.

"_And stop doing that_!"

"Ha…" the boy beside her laughed quietly, "Just like you, Rima…"

Rima grinned, but then Kaname turned his tuscan gaze to her and she bowed her pigtailed head.

"Must we all descend into madness?" Zero called in his stiff voice, as he eyed the Night Class with his usual disdain. "Honestly, Headmaster. If these blood-suckers can't control their childishly reckless approach to formality, then the greatest man in this world to me shall reject this school and never return," Kaien said nothing, his aged eyes still firmly ahead and fixed upon the double doors. "Why are they even here?"

The man beside him considered his student's question for a long moment, but before he could fit together a response that would not incur hurt or anger within Zero footsteps could be heard approaching quietly outside. A hush fell within the atrium, and heads turned to the door. An ominous silence hung in the air, but the slow footsteps shuffled closer and the clock on the ceiling still kept up its continual drone; tick…tock…tick…tock

The minute hand shuddered to its new position, and instantly the chimes began. One…two…three…

The footsteps seemed to have stopped.

Four…five…six…

Outside the lone figure raised two pale-skinned hands with long fingers to take hold of the golden handles, the moonlight casting an iridescent glow upon their skin.

Seven…eight…nine…

The doors each opened a fraction of an inch.

Ten…

Zero's heart was pounding with anticipation. The moment had come, the day he had been waiting for over all these months. He was going to meet him. _Him_! The world's most legendary Hunter! It seemed a day he had been waiting for since birth.

Eleven…

The doors began slowly opening. A rather thin silhouette could be seen shadowed before the moon. He stepped forwards at an oddly shuffling gate, head a little bowed and shoulders seemingly hunched.

Twelve.

The man raised his head, and behind a fringe of messy black hair Zero saw large, protuberant black eyes rimmed with dark hollows of fatigue. The pallid complexion was quite young and strangely handsome, perhaps a few years more aged than his own, though his poise suggested a great oldness or else its opposite; he was hunched and bent over, hands shoved in trouser pockets and eyes strangely deadened eyes scouting the room and its inhabitants. He seemed every bit the suspicious, lanky teenager, but – Zero thought – he couldn't possibly be. He _was_ the legendary Hunter…right?

"Mr. Lawliet!" Kaien Cross extended his arms and smiled welcomingly. The man paid little to no attention, instead tilting his unkempt head up and cocking it slightly as he looked at the clock welded to the ceiling. "Right on time. How good it is to finally meet—"

"Incorrect," the man said, in an empty and languid voice, looking down from the clock to the now frowning Headmaster upon the staircase. He began shuffling to the nearest chair and all eyes followed him. Zero's frown was the most intense to knit all the brows in the room. _This_ was the man he had been praying to meet since birth? "Agreements were for my arrival to be at exactly midnight. However, I arrived at this academy at about seven minutes and thirty three seconds to go until midnight," He sat down on the chair. I suppose you could call it that; for he didn't sit like any normal person would. Instead of sinking down he instead raised his legs and crouched, taking hold of his knees and cupping them in his palms. He raised a hand to his mouth and gnawed absently on his thumb with his two flat front teeth.

Everybody stared at him, and then at each other, and then back.

"Unless you were speaking of my arrival within this charming dormitory, Headmaster Cross?" he continued, tilting his messy black head to him. "In which case you would still be wrong. I arrived outside with a few seconds before midnight, and I entered after eleven chimes of the clock. Now, by my calculations I entered at roughly seventeen seconds past midnight, taking into account the mechanisms and average length of a chime – you wouldn't happen to have any cake, would you?" He added in a conversationalist way, as if it were perfectly normal to speak of such things completely out of the blue. Zero and his Headmaster exchanged glances. The silence continued for an uncomfortably long time. "Well, that's a shame,"

"If you wish for cake, then you shall have it," Kaname said, and he and the one in the chair looked at one another. Eyes connected; burgundy wine to dark umber. Lawliet's narrowed, ever so slightly. His already thin mouth pursed as it tipped fractionally downward, as if determined not to allow the hospitality the Pureblood seemed to display. For whatever reason he didn't seem to trust the other, with his vampiric grace and tranquil complexion. He seemed…almost too perfect. He reached slowly for the pocket of the black Day Class blazer he had been issued, and withdrew a small box of Pocky. Rima and Senri, the boy with russet auburn hair with his arm linked through hers, suddenly seemed more interested; Pocky was their favourite. Even blood was second fiddle to those delightful stick of chocolate.

The boy with blonde hair beside Kain snorted.

"Ha! He doesn't need cake, just look at him!" he exclaimed. Eyes flew to him, and Lawliet looked at him with a steady black gaze – although he couldn't look particularly threatening with a stick of Pocky between his pale lips. "Weirdo,"

Zero pulled the gun from his blazer before Kaien could hold him back.

"Don't you dare insult him, Hanabusa!" he spat, but his Headmaster had already rendered the Bloody Rose from his grasp and pushed down his arm.

"Leave it, Zero," he said gently, and although Zero was still fuming he forced himself to calm. Lawliet's protuberant gaze turned to the silverette upon the stairs and slowly transferred the Pocky from one side of his mouth to the other. For whatever reason he felt he already liked this boy… "Leave the foolish to be foolish. For we all know what Hanabusa can be like on occasion,"

"Your Headmaster is correct in that, Raito," Lawliet spoke, in that oddly bored voice of his. Zero looked at him. "Matsuda's just being stupid again,"

"My name isn't Raito," Zero replied, fixing the pale crouching figure with a strangely quizzical look. "It's Zero,"

"Funny…" Lawliet intoned, his voice quiet as if in thought. "How very strange… You just remind me of someone, that's all. It's probably the hair, or perhaps the eyes. There's something about them…" The general gaze of the room turned to Zero, and Lawliet stepped down from his crouching seat. He started towards the staircase with that weird shuffling gait, and he put a pale hand upon the marble banister. "You're top of your class, aren't you, Raito?"

"Zero,"

"My mistake,"

"But…yes," Zero conceded, "To your question, I am. Why do you ask?"

"I gathered you were, I just wished to reassure my judgement," Lawliet replied, "You see, it's common for someone with great intellect to slouch once in a while,"

"Vain…" Hanabusa muttered to himself, taking note of the great bend in Lawliet's shoulders.

"Shut up, Matsuda," was the response, and he quite ignored the blonde boy as he began bubbling with aggravation. "But, all the same, it can grow quite tiresome to work both brain and body so often and so hard that one begins to fall into the habit of slouching so as to—"

"I-It's Hanabusa!" the boy blurted at last.

"I'm sure it is…" Lawliet said without interest, "And you looked better with your hair black," Hanabusa burned red with annoyance and confusion. Rima giggled, and Hanabusa shot her a dirty look.

"Oooh, I never knew you had black hair, Aido!" she cried, quite unaffected by the way Lawliet looked at her. "I can't even imagine it! You must've looked like a right idiot!" Hanabusa bristled and turned moodily away, but the young man with black hair seemed to smile and he turned to shuffle towards her with a decisive brightness.

"Misa Misa!" he said, his voice suddenly more human too. "I didn't know you came to this school. Oh, and Matt as well," He smiled in that awkward way of someone unused to much affection. Senri and Rima exchanged glances. "I must say, Misa, I loved your latest cover in Vogue,"

"Um…my name's Rima," she said, with a slight flick of her blonde pigtails. "But…thanks?"

"Pocky?" He offered forward the box. At this she didn't seem to care about what he had called her, instead reaching out and taking a few sticks of chocolate.

"Are you not interested in introductions, sir?" Kaname asked agreeably, still maintaining that welcoming smile.

"Sweets first, introductions afterward," Lawliet said through a mouthful of Pocky. "Oh, and by the by… I'm still waiting on that cake, you know,"

"Of course," Kaname clicked to one of the few maids upon the second floor balcony, and they bowed low before making for the servant's stairway to the kitchens. "But, I assume, you already know me?" Lawliet began shuffling back to his seat.

"Presumptuous…but yes, dear Pureblood prince," he said disinterestedly as he went, "Last remaining son of the Kuran dynasty, orphaned. First name Kaname, middle name Inamatus. Dorm President and Representative of the Night Class. Oh, yes…" He fixed Kaname with a long, silent stare. "…yes…you could say I know you. As a matter of fact I know you…very well, indeed. For a fair few of your secrets are my secrets too," Zero's hard eyes turned from one dark-haired figure to the other. They seemed to have locked eyes, as if in silent battle, and trying to intimidate the other into a false move of bad play.

"Well, then," Kaname said pleasantly, with all his Pureblood charm. "It seems the two of us shall be close classmates, Mr. Lawliet,"

"Yes…" The other's voice was low now. "I hope so… I think it good if we were to keep close eyes on one another," When the rest of the room cast him suspicious and questioning looks he raised his voice. "I came here to Cross Academy on an assignment. To enrol here I am beginning my latest investigation; recently there have been numerous deaths of innocent human females within this half of the country," He snapped a Pocky in half. Gasps of shock ripped the air, and suddenly all were alert. "All between the ages of sixteen and nineteen. Every corpse we have uncovered has had two bitemarks similar to those of a vampire's fangs. So far there have been near thirty eight casualties,"

"What!?"

"How dreadful!"

"This is preposterous!" Kaname cried, "Lawliet, this can't be real,"

"Why should a man joke over such matters?" he said icily, stuffing both halves of Pocky into his mouth. "I hoped to find an apprentice Hunter here…" His large black eyes lazily flicked up to Zero and Kaien, and Zero's own widened. An apprentice Hunter? "Because I fear this case may be exceedingly dangerous and perhaps too complex to study alone. I know not if this assailant works alone or in company, but no matter what it is my sworn duty to end these murders," Silence. "All I have been able to uncover is this is work of the vampire realm and also of love,"

"Love?" Zero repeated, taking a few steps down the staircase. Lawliet considered the silverette figure, his concern and his face. That face was earnest, hard and truthful. He decided inwardly to speak to Zero alone.

"In the room of each girl," he said at last, not removing his eyes from Zero's. "We uncovered a piece of text that may or may not be from a journal or diary of some kind. Each contains words and notes about love and affections and a man they seem to express deep and meaningful emotions towards. However a name is never written, even throughout thirty-eight sources let alone multiple entries. And also…" He slowly chewed on a Pocky, at last casting his gaze to the room at large. "Each entry starts about ten to seven days before the death of each girl. These murders…they are for love of a vampire,"

* * *

**And so my first ever murder mystery is under way! I am certain that it will end up being completely obvious and not a mystery at all, but oh well. I'll try XD**

**Hope you find this interesting, at least.**

**Leave a review for any sort of feedback, positive or negative :) **

**Thanks, M.H.H**


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